In San Diego, it was another busy week of stadium news, led by U-T San Diego.

Monday, I wrote a story that explored the Port of San Diego's finances, noting that "whether the terminal is a vital economic engine or something less is a key component of a renewed debate on how to use 96 waterfront acres to best benefit the region."

You'll remember, as I wrote in the same story, that "the owners and editorial board of U-T San Diego are proposing a new sports and entertainment complex there, while still respecting maritime uses for some period."

The debate over the port's maritime activity had barely begun when U-T editorial cartoonist Steve Breen waded into those waters.

A U-T editorial then took aim at what it called "the port's Enron-style finances". That was the second editorial in four days. An earlier one noted: "We were heartened by the positive reaction to the proposal that we received, both publicly and privately, from many quarters. The criticisms of it were also helpful."

In Qualcomm Stadium news, a football fan's lawyer went into court and filed a lawsuit to uphold his client's right to curse at Chargers games. The attorney told a reporter, "A fan has a right to say '[expletive] you' in public. It's a public place."

And I went to the annual retreat of the San Diego Association of Governments where over dinner, in some of his strongest words yet, Chargers special counsel Mark Fabiani advocated for a countywide stadium vote and said a vote would slip to 2013, when, notably, San Diego will have a new mayor.

Speaking of a new mayor, San Diego's four high-profile mayoral candidates weighed in on the U-T ownership's stadium plan in the newspaper on Super Bowl Sunday.

But the big game was the focus of the week's football conversation.

We found out that the man in charge of feeding 70,000 fans at the game was from Escondido, and we also found out that Roger Goodell wants 34 teams in the league via expansion when (at least) one returns to Los Angeles.

“So where does that leave Los Angeles?” Bonsignore wrote. “Very much in the picture, believe it or not.”

Forbes’ Mike Ozanian did the math. If the league were to expand by two teams, its owners would likely split a cool couple billion dollars.

Speaking of counting cash, Bloomberg's editors have something for those who wondered leading up to the Super Bowl whether a stadium is an economic boon. The answer: it isn't. The piece uses more words to make the argument and suggests there is another reason to build such venues. Love.

A rendering of what a new Los Angeles Convention Center would look like.
— AEG/Populous

A rendering of what a new Los Angeles Convention Center would look like.
/ AEG/Populous

Over at the North County Times, we got a nice breakdown on why San Diego won't host another Super Bowl until it builds a new stadium. "We were sold a bum bill of goods," columnist Jay Paris wrote.

In Los Angeles, new renderings of what an expanded convention center would look like were unveiled Thursday. Dakota Smith of the Los Angeles Daily News called it a "dramatic refashioning of the city-owned Convention Center" and mentioned how the new setting would now boast contiguous space instead of separate buildings. Hmmm.... Where have we heard a debate over those two approaches before?

Expanding the Los Angeles convention center is a major part of new stadium construction there. Not everyone in L.A. was impressed with the pretty drawings, though. Ari Bloomekatz wrote in the Los Angeles Times that: "Los Angeles City Councilman Ed Reyes railed against designers of a new Convention Center exhibit hall Thursday, saying that they failed to account for how Angelenos would benefit from the project and instead have focused on building an international icon."

In San Francisco, the 49ers finally landed the league money the team was counting on to help build a new stadium in Santa Clara. Team CEO Jed York said the $200 million loan means the project is fully funded.

The new stadium is already pricing out longtime fans, Mike Rosenberg of the San Jose Mercury News reported. One of those fans is a guy who put his 50-yard line season tickets in his will for his daughter. Rosenberg wrote that the fan may switch allegiances. To the Raiders.

The 49ers have called San Francisco home for 66 years. Odds of them making it to 70 are obviously now much longer. York said "2015 is definite" for the opening of a new stadium, and 2014 is possible.

Speaking of odds, the San Jose Mercury News' Tim Kawakami said the chances of the Raiders sharing the Santa Clara stadium with the 49ers now is "almost nil." For those holding out hope, Kawakami noted that York and Raiders owner Mark Davis worked out and had lunch together the day the 49ers got their commitment from the league. So maybe they can play squash one day for the chance to share a stadium....

In Oakland, though, Ray Ratto of CSNBayArea.com squashed any chance of that. He wrote: "Now that they are not to be co-tenants in Santa Clara, presumably by their own choice, they either have to find their own billion-dollar sugar daddies while staying in Oakland, or look to get out while the getting is lucrative."

In St. Louis, stadium negotiations began in earnest Feb. 1. Matthew Hathaway of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch outlined a $124 million plan that the city's convention and visitors commission gave Rams owner Stan Kroenke to entice him to stay.

The team's lease allows it to leave by the 2015 season if the stadium doesn't meet certain criteria.

A day before the plan was released, Hathaway laid out everything you need to know if you're interested in this particular stadium drama. The short version? The team has 30 days to accept or reject the offer, and then 60 more to make a counteroffer. The two sides would enter arbitration on June 15 if a deal weren't struck.

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay took to his blog (What? A mayor with a blog? Hey, San Diego's four high-profile mayoral candidates, you see that?) to call the proposal that the Rams received "a good and credible one" and make a few other points about it.

It meets the terms of the lease both in deadline and in substance.

I want to make my position on paying for enhancements to the Dome clear: new local public dollars spent to make the facility “top tier” will be subject to the prior vote of the people. If the CVC gets an agreement with the Rams, YOU will get the final say.

Maybe San Diego's four high-profile mayoral candidates will take note of that, too.

In Minnesota, which is quickly becoming the land of 10,000 stadium plans, yet another new stadium plan is being fast-tracked, Mike Kaszuba of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported.

Let me break it down Q&A style. Where would the stadium be built? Alongside the Metrodome. When would the plan be done? This week. What’s the plan for the plan? That it go to the state Legislature in time for a spring vote. How would construction be paid for? In part, allowing electronic pull tabs (Internet gambling) in bars. Anything else interesting? Yes, the team is formally contesting whether they have to play at the Metrodome next year; the team says it doesn’t.

In closing, for those still lamenting the Chargers inability to make the playoffs the past couple seasons, take heart. There is an upside to that. Better said, there’s a downside to making the playoffs. Fresh off their first-ever playoff appearance, the Houston Texans have announced they are raising ticket prices. They’ll increase an average of 8.5 percent.

Some parting gifts.

For you hard-core NFL fans who are already going through withdrawals, this reminder.